Business Benefits From Incipient Software
Justifying a radical change in the way storage is presented and supplied requires a comparative return on investment with a reasonable payback. Reasonable payback for most large enterprises is less than three years while exceptional payback is less than two years.
The majority of Incipient software enterprise comparative paybacks (utilizing very conservative implementation assumptions) have proven to be less than two years. In numerous cases, the payback is less than one year. Time to payback is dependent on the applicable savings. Savings are typically found in the areas of online data migration, automated provisioning, online data copy services, online volume management, with additional reduced power and cooling costs.
On-line Data Migration, Non-Disruptive
Online data migration performed by Incipient software offer many savings that are directly attributable to the ability to move data without impact to operations. The specific quantifiable savings comes from the following areas:
- Decrease data migration time and effort: A reduction in operating expenditures (OpEx). The amount of reduced time and operating expenses comes from a greatly shortened planning window. The shortened window is a direct result of no longer having to schedule and coordinate disruptive downtime because the data migrations are online and non-disruptive. Additionally, Incipient software reduces the number of people (system admins, DBAs, application users, etc.) that in the past, were involved in the planning process. Adding to the savings include eliminating the process to update host software and its configurations; reducing SAN configuration changes; and containing changes to the storage administrator's domain.
- Reduce and often eliminate costly professional services (OpEx savings) because it is simple to use and "online".
- Significantly reduce overlap between storage systems in transition (old and new storage systems). The reduction in overlap increases storage asset utilization and decreases overlap costs, which reduce capital expenditures (CapEx). Reduced overlap time comes from "online" data migration doing the migration without time restrictions or windows of opportunity. The savings comes from reduced lease, maintenance, and or amortization overlap.
- Create far more effective utilization of tiered storage, thus reducing capital expenditures (CapEx). It matches and migrates applications to the most cost effective storage tier while permitting users to choose to balance cost versus performance.
- Eliminate application downtime associated with data migration reducing OpEx.
Automated Storage Provisioning
Quantifiable savings are readily found in the following areas:
- Reduced over-provisioning because data migrations are easy when they are online and non-disruptive. Storage administrators are no longer required to over provision to accommodate future growth. This results storage purchase delays (CAP-EX savings)
- Automate and simplify provisioning process, thereby reducing manual intervention; risk mitigation (OP-EX savings)
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Increase storage utilization rates, leverage stranded capacity (silo) (CAP-EX savings)
Online Data Copy Services
Incipient software's copy services savings come from the reduced cost of the storage systems used for copies (CapEx); the elimination of storage system based local copy software license costs (CapEx); and a marked increase in IT admin storage productivity (OpEx).
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Leverage low-cost storage arrays: Enable tier-1 data copies (used for testing, backup staging, reporting, etc.) to be application transparent located on much lower cost storage. The leveraging of lower cost storage for clones of tier-1 production data measurably reduces CapEx.
- Eliminate storage system based copy software: reduce license CapEx costs as well as maintenance OpEx costs.
- Increase IT storage admin productivity: orchestrate management from a single touch point for all storage system data copies greatly reducing admin time spent and OpEx costs.
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Improve the ability to perform fast restores (OP-EX savings)
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Automate process for selecting and preparing storage resources for target, based on deep discovery of arrays, user-defined policies and industry best practices (OP-EX savings)
Online Volume Management
Incipient online volume management savings come from the elimination of application server volume manager software costs (CapEx); an increase in IT administration productivity from a single touch point for volume management (OpEx); and the elimination of application server multipathing (CapEx).
- Eliminating volume management software reduces both license (CapEx) and maintenance (OpEx) costs.
- Eliminating or reducing server volume managers also increases administrative productivity by providing them fewer touch points and tasks. Reduce OpEx.
- Eliminating multipathing server software reduces both license (CapEx) and maintenance (OpEx) costs.